From the Pacific Northwest: A Sunny Wednesday

“I walked slowly to enjoy this freedom, and when I came out of the mountains, I saw the sky over the prairie, and I thought that if heaven was real, I hoped it was a place I never had to go, for this earth was greater than any paradise.”

Art for Spring – Part I of VI: Joe Pulliam (American, contemporary)

Below – “Buffalo Dreamer”

A Poem for Today

“Home-Coming”
By Leonie Adams

When I stepped homeward to my hill,
Dusk went before with quiet tread;
The bare laced branches of the trees
Were as a mist about its head.

Upon its leaf-brown breast the rocks
Like great grey sheep lay silentwise,
Between the birch trees’ gleaming arms,
The faint stars trembled in the skies.

The white brook met me half-way up,
And laughed as one that knew me well,
To whose more clear than crystal voice
The frost had joined a crystal spell.

The skies lay like pale-watered deep,
Dusk ran before me to its strand
And cloudily leaned forth to touch
The moon’s slow wonder with her hand.

“Under every layer of pain, another layer of recovery lies in wait, the sweet, forever surprising truth of endurance.”

Art for Spring – Part III of VI: Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917-2009)

Below – “After Picking”

A Second Poem for Today

“Simple Talk”
By William Stafford

Spilling themselves in the sun bluebirds
wing-mention their names all day.
If everything told so clear a life,
maybe the sky would come,
maybe heaven;
maybe appearance and truth
would be the same.
Maybe whatever seems to be so,
we should speak so from our souls,
never afraid,
“Light” when it comes,
“Dark” when it goes away.

“A broad and ample rode, whose dust is gold,
And pavement Starrs—as Starrs to thee appeer,
Seen in the Galaxie, that Milkie way
Which nightly as a circling Zone thou seest
Pouderd with Starrs.”

Art for Spring – Part V of VI: Claudio Abate (Italian, contemporary)

Below – “Girls” (oil on canvas)

“Wonder and Joy”
By Robinson Jeffers

The things that one grows tired of—O, be sure
They are only foolish artificial things!
Can a bird ever tire of having wings?
And I, so long as life and sense endure,
(Or brief be they!) shall nevermore inure
My heart to the recurrence of the springs,
Of gray dawns, the gracious evenings,
The infinite wheeling stars. A wonder pure
Must ever well within me to behold
Venus decline; or great Orion, whose belt
Is studded with three nails of burning gold,
Ascend the winter heaven. Who never felt
This wondering joy may yet be good or great:
But envy him not: he is not fortunate.